Michael has this way of forcing you to start a conversation with him. He crafts his openers in such a way that you are forced to appear engaged and interested in what he is saying, no matter how much you don’t care.
For example:
“Boy I’m glad we bought box seats for tonight!” he will say. He has yet to tell me what he bought box seats for or why he’s glad, so now I am forced to respond with “Why?” or “What did you buy tickets for?” I don’t care, but things get very awkward if I don’t say anything.
Some other examples:
– “Well I’m certainly not eating Chinese food again for a while!”
– “So I’ve decided that every man needs to take his girlfriend to see ‘Blood Diamond’ “
– “Well I won best boyfriend award this weekend.”
And my favorite:
– “So the game was really nice last night,” Michael prods.
“Oh well good,” I say vaguely, not looking up from my screen.
“We got rained out,” Michael says with a smug, bemusedness. I see in his face undertones of Biff from “Back to the Future” pounding on my head saying “Hello! McPam!”
“Oh, well, bad then I guess,” I say. Oh yes, I forgot it had rained the night before. He’s usually not sarcastic, so my auto response backfired on me. Dang it.
But he was unphased as he unfolded the story about the rain delay and ultimate cancellation of the game, the couple he and Jan met, the free tickets they scored from them, what they ate for lunch, when they were going to another game, how much parking cost, how bad the peanuts were.
God I wish I had the Delorean right now.
